I could feel my legs start to give out beneath me, and I reached out to grab on to the nearest thing I could find to steady myself. It turned out to be the shoulder of a man in a dark suit. He looked up at me with a quizzical expression, but I didn't remove my hand. I feared that if I did, I might fall over.
To anyone else in the bar, it might have looked as though we were bitter enemies. Timeless adversaries. Having once divided the country into two equal and separate sections with the distinct understanding that she would never infiltrate my territory and I would never infiltrate hers. And now one of us had had broken that code and was standing in enemy territory.
But that couldn't have been further from the truth.
Because the woman standing in front of me in the fitted pink satin dress, ready to be whisked away to a romantic dinner with the man I had been hired to test, was not my enemy. She was one of my best friends.
And she had clearly been keeping a very dark secret from me.
26
friends in low places
"Zoë?" I finally managed to get out after my eyelids stopped blinking rapidly in utter disbelief. But the question mark in my voice wasn't for the purpose of verifying that it was really her. I knew it was her. She was standing right in front of me. And despite the fact that she never wore pink, or owned a dress that even remotely resembled the one she was wearing now, I recognized her right away. The question was directed more at her reason for being here. In this bar. In this city. With this man.
My subject.
"Jen?" she asked immediately in return, with seemingly the same motivation behind her punctuation. "What are you doing here?"
But I lobbed the question right back at her. "No, what are you doing here?"
She glanced anxiously between me and Dustin, clearly wondering how much I could possibly know and how much she should divulge as a result. "I'm here with my, um . . ." she stammered slightly. "My boyfriend."
"The one you refused to tell us about?"
She shifted her weight uneasily. "Uh, yeah."
"And now I know why," I stated, my voice blatantly accusatory.
Zoë hesitated again, sneaking a wary glance at Dustin. "I'm not sure what you mean."
But I didn't feel like playing this bullshitting game. So I grabbed her by the elbow and steered her into a nearby corner. She looked apologetically back at Dustin and mouthed, "I'll be right back."
"I'm on an assignment," I hissed once we were out of earshot.
Zoë still insisted on playing coy and unassuming. "Really? Wow, what a coincidence."
But I simply rolled my eyes. "And he is the subject." I jabbed my finger back toward Dustin.
Shock spread across Zoë's face, and I realized that she hadn't understood just how much of a coincidence this was until right now. "Dustin?" she confirmed in disbelief.
"Yes!" I gasped.
Her skin suddenly turned a very pale shade of white, which happened to be the second uncharacteristic color I had seen on her tonight.
"Oh, my God." Zoë's voice was quickly filling with panic. "Alice hired you? She sent you here?"
Now it was my turn to shift uneasily on my feet. "Well, not exactly."
"What do you mean, not exactly?"
"Actually," I began hesitantly, "Lexi hired me. She's the one who came to my office."
Zoë's eyebrows crumpled together. "Lexi, as in Dustin's daughter?"
I nodded. "She sensed something was going on with her dad, and I guess her friend overheard her mom talking about the agency, and so Lexi speculated that maybe her dad was a cheater."
"You took an assignment from a twelve-year-old girl?! Do you know no limits, Jen?"
I purposely ignored her jab. "Well, she was right," I pointed out, motioning toward the general vicinity of the bar.
"That's beside the point. I can't believe you would stoop that low as to take money from a child . . . for this!"
"First of all," I replied sternly, quickly losing my patience with Zoë's blatant subject avoidance, "I didn't take her money. I'm doing this pro bono. And second of all, more importantly, it doesn't matter who hired me. What matters is that she was right. Her father is a cheater."
Zoë placed her hands on her hips. "That's a really harsh word. With very negative connotations. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a 'cheater.'"
"Oh no?" I shot back. "What would you call him, then? He's married. With kids. And you're here canoodling with him in a hotel in Palm Springs, where he is supposed to be with a bunch of golf buddies. What part of that is not cheating, Zoë? What part of that doesn't make you the other woman? The mistress."
Clearly she didn't like this word any better, because her eyes narrowed and I could almost see steam coming out of her nostrils. "Because it's different," she insisted. "He doesn't love his wife anymore. He loves me. And he's going to tell her about us."
I let out the most audible, irritated groan I could muster. "Oh, please! Do you realize how pitiful you sound right now? Do I even have to tell you that story is complete and utter bullshit? Because honestly, I thought you were smarter than that."
"I know how it sounds!" she snapped, immediately defensive. "But I believe him. I do. There's something really good between us. Something I've never felt before. I'm wearing pink, for Christ's sake! And I didn't tell you guys because—"
"Because you knew I'd flip out?" I interrupted, my voice getting louder. With a glance over Zoë's left shoulder, I could make out Dustin still standing by the doorway, looking incredibly awkward and nervous. There was no doubt he was starting to pick up bits and pieces of our increasingly heated conversation. "Honestly, Zoë, I can't believe that after everything I've been through in my life and everything I've seen in my career, you would actually date a married man. How could you do that to me?"
Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. "This isn't about you, Jen. This is about me. And it's my life and I'll date whomever I want. I promise I was going to tell you once he left his wife. Once we didn't have to sneak around anymore."
"Well, I think that day will be coming sooner than you think. Although my guess is she'll probably be the one doing the leaving."
Zoë's eyes widened. "You're going to tell Lexi about this!?"
I shook my head. "No. That's not exactly appropriate. But I am going to tell her mother."
Zoë's body language immediately transitioned from fury to pleading. "Jen, no, you can't do that!"
"Why not?" I asked coolly.
"Please don't. You'll ruin everything!"
I threw my hands in the air. "How will that ruin everything if he's already planning on telling her? I'm just going to make sure she gets the information from a trustworthy source."
"Because," Zoë cried, her eyes growing moist with desperation, "he has to do it at the right time. He has it all planned out."
I groaned again. "God, you sound like such a walking cliché, I can't even deal with it."
I started to turn toward the exit, but Zoë placed her hand on my arm. "You can't tell her. Please, I beg you."
But I brushed it away. "I have a duty to report my findings to my client, and if this"—I gave Zoë a disdainful once-over—"is what I found, then that's what she'll get."
And with that, Zoë immediately reverted to anger mode. "So you would betray our friendship? Just like that? With no regard for me or what I want or what I'm feeling? All because of some stupid client?"
I looked into her fuming eyes, my own pupils dilated with rage. But when I opened my mouth, my voice was as calm as a Buddhist monk's. "Yes."
"How dare you," she accused. "How dare you stand there and call my life a lie after the way you fucked yours up royally by . . . well, lying!"
I could feel the chills run up and down my spine as her comment touched a nerve, but I didn't respond. I just continued to glower at her.
Zoë snorted in disgust as she pushed me aside and stomped past me. "Fine!" she called back, drawing the attention of the entire bar—or the half that hadn't a
lready started to eavesdrop on our argument. "Tell her. What the fuck do I care? I hope that makes you very happy. I hope you can sleep at night knowing that you sold out your best friend for a complete stranger!"
Then she grabbed a very nervous and inquisitive Dustin by the arm and literally dragged him out of the bar, thus ending the first fight Zoë and I had ever had in our ten years of uninterrupted friendship.
Needless to say, I didn't enjoy the relaxing evening I had originally planned for myself. Instead, I spent the rest of the night seething over what had just happened and replaying the argument over and over in my head, each time getting more enraged about the things she had said to me.
She knew what infidelity meant to me. She knew that my whole life had been built upon the crumbled and unsteady foundation that my father had left behind in the wake of his selfish affairs and halfhearted affections for my mother. Yet she'd stood there defending her decision to do the same thing to some other poor, defenseless little girl.
I had given up everything for this job—literally everything—to make sure that what happened to me didn't happen to other people. People like Lexi Garrett and her mother. People like Darcie Connors and her unadopted child. And Zoë knew that. She knew what I had sacrificed to make a difference in this world. And it was as if she didn't even care. She couldn't even be bothered to care. She was too selfish, too blinded by some bogus excuse for a relationship, to even see what she was doing.
It was as if she had taken an ice pick, stabbed it into my heart, and then just stepped over my lifeless, bleeding body with a shrug and a perfunctory, "Good luck with that, Jen," as she disappeared into the night to enjoy her eight P.M. dinner reservation with her married lover.
I attempted to distract myself with my planned pay-per-view movie and a room service cart full of fried food, but my appetite for both had vanished. And what finally calmed me down to the point where I wasn't literally pacing the hotel room, leaving zigzagging tracks across the carpet, was not a relaxing bubble bath or the hotel-supplied fluffy white robe, but the ultimate realization that this whole thing with Zoë was temporary.
There are two things that every woman knows about men (or at least should): (1) They don't change, and (2) they don't leave their wives. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but I happen to work in a job that pretty much proves that exceptions are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Just as a statistician would study a set of data and systematically throw out the anomalies. Because they don't matter. What matters is what's in the middle. The majority. That section of the curve that 99.99 percent of all people fit into.
And you can't live your life hoping to land on the outskirts. Hoping to be that .01 percent exception.
Zoë would evidently have to learn this hard way.
Tomorrow, I would tell Lexi's mother the truth. And Zoë would be able to see firsthand what kind of man Dustin Garrett truly is. And when she did come around and realize the gravity in her mistake, I would be waiting with open arms to comfort her. Because she is my friend, and that's what friends do. They forgive each other's mistakes. Zoë could accuse me all day long of selling her out, betraying our friendship, whatever she wanted. But I knew the truth.
I was doing her a favor.
27
home turf
The next morning, I flew back to Los Angeles with resolve and determination. Zoë was living in a state of delusion. And chances are Mrs. Alice Garrett, Dustin's wife, was living in that same state. This was my opportunity to wake up two birds with one stone . . . so to speak.
So instead of driving straight home from the airport, I opened up Dustin Garrett's case file and inputted Lexi's home address into my car's navigation system.
I knew that trying to get to Dustin's wife through Lexi would have been too difficult. She would want to know the results herself first before she allowed me to speak to her mother, and I wasn't going to trust the delivery of this kind of information to a person who proudly describes herself as "almost thirteen." I also knew that getting Alice to come down to the office without telling her who I was or why I wanted to speak to her would be near impossible. So I decided that this, although highly unorthodox, would be the easiest, cleanest approach.
I used to do house calls all the time. When I was doing this job solo and didn't have an office to bring people to. I would visit the client's home once before the assignment and once after. But there was a reason I stopped entering people's homes. A very good reason. It was too much like entering their lives. After already having almost slept with someone's husband, the last thing you want to do is walk through their front door and see firsthand what you've just potentially destroyed.
However many times you remind yourself that what you did was for a just and worthy cause, these are still things that you don't need to see. And that's exactly why the clients come to me now.
Well, except for today. When the client happens to be twelve.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of a modest, one-story cottage-style home in Cheviot Hills. It was quaint and well kept. Nothing like the million-dollar mansions I used to visit back in the day.
The landscaping appeared to be a labor of love, with neatly sheared grass that reminded me of a marine's crew cut and a brick walkway lined with a rainbow of tulips.
My cell phone rang just as I was unfastening my seat belt and gathering my things. I checked the caller ID. It was John. He had been calling every twenty minutes since six A.M. this morning. And I had been ignoring his calls for just as long. I knew he had probably heard from Zoë either late last night or early this morning and was calling to get my side of the story. I groaned loudly and ignored the call once again. Then I shut off the cell phone and tossed it into my bag.
As I got out of the car and made my way toward the front door, I could feel my chest tighten and my breathing quicken. The nerves were settling in. Not because this was my first house call in over a year, but because, let's face it, this was no ordinary visit.
It was one thing to knock on the door of someone who's been expecting you. Who's been waiting impatiently for more than forty-eight hours to hear whatever news you've brought with you. It's quite another when the person on the other side of the door has no idea who you are. And the news I was bringing with me would definitely not be welcomed. In fact, I had to prepare myself for the fact that it might not even be believed.
I sucked in a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
Dogs barked in the background, and I heard a voice sternly telling them to shut up and sit. Not until the barking subsided and the voice chorused in a round of "Good girls. Stay!" did the door finally open.
Lexi Garrett's youthful face appeared on the other side of it.
I could tell that she was trying to place me. It wasn't that she didn't recognize me. She did. She just didn't recognize me here. On the front stoop of her parents' house, with her mother (hopefully) just in the other room.
After a moment of stunned silence, she finally got out, "Ashlyn? What are you doing here?"
And before I could even answer, her eyes opened wide as realization crossed her face. "Oh, my God. He failed, didn't he? That's why you're here. To tell me in person."
I smiled patiently and cocked my head to the side. "Is your mother here?" I asked, purposely avoiding her question.
"I knew it!" was her only reply. "I just knew he would."
"Lexi," I warned softly, "that's not necessarily why I'm here. I would like to speak to your mother. In private."
She tossed me a confused look. "I don't get it. Why can't you just tell me if he . . ."
But her voice stopped suddenly, and I could see her body stiffen as her hand clutched the doorknob.
"Lexi?" came a voice from behind her. A tender voice. A warm voice.
An unassuming voice.
I felt my body tense up as well. For as long as I've been doing this, for as long as I've been breaking bad news, you would think that I would have seen it all. But this . . . this
was new. This was different. And this was making my heartbeat feel erratic in my chest. As if it were beating for the very first time and still trying to get the hang of it.
Then a face appeared. It was soft and feminine and framed with shoulder-length waves of auburn hair. And its eyes were gentle and innocent. The worst kind of eyes to see in this situation.
The moment I laid my eyes on Alice Garrett, I was overwhelmed by the stark differences between her . . . and my best friend Zoë. I've always said the grass is greener on the other side. Especially when it comes to infidelity. And in this case, it couldn't have been more true.
Zoë was sarcastic and sassy and brooding and always enhanced by bold clothing choices and dramatic makeup. This woman was natural and minimal and exuding a soothing, uncorrupted energy. The kind of person who always assumes the best of everyone she meets, even after she's been scorned.
They were like night and day.
"Who is this?" Alice asked, looking adoringly at her daughter.
But for the first time since that child stepped into my office nearly six weeks ago, she was absolutely speechless. It appeared to surprise her mother as well, because a mellow laugh escaped her lips. The black, wet nose of a Labrador retriever pushed its way into the open doorway, followed shortly by another one belonging to a smaller terrier mix.
Mrs. Garrett nudged both of them aside with her leg and turned to me. "Can I help you?"
"Yes, hello," I said as politely as possible, feeling the nerves already starting to slip into my voice. "I'm a friend of Lexi's. Actually, she came to me asking for some help a few weeks back, and I'm hoping I might be able to speak to you about it."
Alice's eyebrows rose inquisitively, and she looked to her daughter for confirmation. Lexi's head dropped down to avoid eye contact and then eventually fell into a surrendering nod.
"Well, of course," Alice obliged, trying to hide the inevitable inquisitiveness in her voice. "Please come in."
"Thank you." I stepped warily across the threshold, bracing myself for all that was waiting for me on the other side.
The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men Page 26
